Refinements by Banks
The final chapter mentions some of the "refinements" of banking that are rather along the lines of trickery.
The Bank of London, composed of a large number of shareholders and trusted with the treasury of the British state, mitigated a bank run by continuing to redeem notes and honor withdrawals, but doing so by using few clerks and paying out small coin, such that the public was assured that they would be paid, but the operational sloth meant that some waited for days to get their turn. In doing so, the bank retained the appearance of solvency and stalled long enough for the panic to abate.
A second such incident involves the collapse of the South Sea Company, whose many letters of credit would no be honored, which in turn threatened the solvency of the bank. The creation of the bubble began when company stock rose greatly in value, and shares of stock were used as collateral for loans that were in turn used to purchase more shares.
To remedy the concern the bank printed many notes without backing and used them to buy stock at a high price, which led several other people to regain faith and begin buying stock - and when the price spiked the bank dumped its shares to buy back its notes. Many were ruined in this debacle, but others who were aware of the bank's deception made significant profits in unloading shares they had purchased cheaply.
In all, there is clearly ample opportunity for manipulation and deception of the public by banks, and the larger the bank the greater the potential for fraud. Especially when banks undertake these refinements with the complicity of government, a great potential for corruption is established.
Ultimately, such deceptions are a threat only to those who deal in bills and notes - the large majority of people, dealing in metal for their daily expenses, cannot as easily be defrauded, as their value is embodied in the metal they handle, which is more difficult to fake than written notes alleging the existence of metal elsewhere.